Recently, recorders capable of recording contents provided by satellite broadcast, for example, and contents distributed via networks, for example, have been prevalent. In recent years, digital television broadcast receivers capable of recording such contents have also become available.
In the above-described variety of contents provided, there exist harmful contents that include sexual expressions or violent expressions. For example, harmful contents include playback control information (parental lock). Upon detection of playback control information from a harmful content, for example, a content playback apparatus requests input of a password. On the condition that a registered password registered in advance and an input password input in response to the request agree, the content playback apparatus permits playback of the harmful content and plays back the harmful content.
In this way, the content playback apparatus limits playback of harmful contents. A variety of other techniques have also been proposed to limit playback of harmful contents.
When a harmful content is played back by the content playback apparatus, however, a password input operation is required even for the user who has permission to view the harmful content, which causes inconvenience.